Movie notes: Bad calls cost ‘ Big Mommas’ a perfect game

Maybe RottenTomatoes.com needs to institute some sort of challenge system, like the NFL. Such a system might easily overturn the alleged “Fresh” labels slapped on three reviews of “Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son” that cost it a perfect game.

When we left this story Friday, Martin Lawrence’s latest allegedly comic fatsuit adventure had a perfect Tomatometer score of zero based on a decent-sized sampling of 21 reviews (decent because the film wasn’t screened in advance for critics, meaning they had to play catch-up. Some chose not to).

Imagine my chagrin to find out this morning that the score had risen to 10. 10! That not only gets “Big Mommas” off the schneid, it raises it above “The Roommate” (Tomatometer score: 6) and “Season of the Witch” (4), the year’s two worst films to date.

After digging into the particulars, my red flag is flying onto the field. For one thing, the Tomatometer counts four Fresh and 38 Rotten reviews. But after sorting them to see the Fresh ones first, I see only three. (OK, they apparently figured that out and fixed it).

And when you break down these three allegedly Fresh reviews, all are of the damning-with-faint-praise variety. Two are online critics, but the third is Mike Hale of the New York freakin’ Times! Really?

Checking out his actual review, I feel confident my Fresh challenge will be upheld. After giving it credit for blending Billy Wilder’s “Some Like It Hot,” “Glee” and TV mystery shows, he follows with a smoking gun:

About the only honestly funny thing in the movie is Faizon Love’s uncredited performance in the Joe E. Brown role, as the school maintenance man who’s immediately smitten with Big Momma.

OK, this is supposed to be a lowbrow, laugh-a-minute slapstick comedy and it has only ONE honestly funny moment? How is that Fresh?

As for the other two, online critic Kam Williams points out its obvious recycling of everything from “Some Like It Hot” to “Fame” to classic Redd Foxx, then rates it “Good.” But he gives it 2 stars. Excuse me? 2 stars on a scale of zero to 4 is mediocre, not good. 3 stars is good; 2 1/2 is borderline.

Another online critic, Michelle Orange of Movieline, gives “Big Mommas” faint, faint praise while making it obvious she has set the bar so low, almost anything would qualify as Fresh. She wrote:

If anything I expected even less from “Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son” than it serves up, which is a reliable gimmick inhabiting a B-movie throwaway story. It goes down like a canned but genial ’80s comedy: Without fanfare or much nutrition; part of your balanced breakfast.

No, no, no. Just because you thought something was going to be horrible and it wasn’t doesn’t make it good.

I know, I know — you’re only supposed to get two challenges. But since the first two are open-and-shut cases, by rule I get a third one. Still, my arm’s getting pretty tired from hurling that red flag. One more suspicious Fresh review, and I may need Pauline Kael surgery (that’s Tommy John surgery for movie critics).